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Environment Minister Gordon Wilson orders two-year environmental assessment of Northern Pulp Mill’s proposed effluent treatment system

Clear as Sludge: What does the decision mean for the future?

December 17, 2019 By Jennifer Henderson 2 Comments

Nova Scotia’s Environment Minister is ordering Northern Pulp to produce more information and complete a full environmental assessment before he will approve the mill’s proposed wastewater treatment plant and a pipeline bringing the effluent from the plant to the Northumberland Strait. The project will replace a 50-year-old polluting system that dumps into Boat Harbour that […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Minister Gordon Wilson, NDP leader Gary Burrill, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, PC leader Tim Houston, Ray Plourde

No federal assessment will be required for Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment project

December 17, 2019 By Joan Baxter 2 Comments

Yesterday, four days before his announcement was due on the Northern Pulp effluent treatment proposal, and less than 24 hours before the deadline for the provincial environment minister to announce his decision, federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson released a statement saying that he had “decided not to designate the Northern Pulp project […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs, Caribou Harbour, Coldwater Lobster Association, Earnscliffe Strategy Group, Friends of the Northumberland Strait, Gulf Nova Scotia Fleet Planning Board, Impact Assessment Act, Impact Assessment Agency (IAA), Justice Timothy Gabriel, Maritime Fishermen’s Union, Mi’kmaq Confederacy of Prince Edward Island, Millbrook First Nation, Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister Margaret Miller, Northern Pulp effluent, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Northern Pulp lobbyist, Northumberland Strait Sportfishing Association, Paper Excellence, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Premier Dennis King, Premier Stephen McNeil, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association, Sipekne'katik First Nation, Trevor Floyd, Velma McColl

Child care workers go round and round with bus complaints

Morning File, Friday, September 20, 2019

September 20, 2019 By Suzanne Rent 3 Comments

News 1. Blackface Writes El Jones: When the furor over Trudeau’s Blackface photos dies down, to be referred to as an “embarrassing incident” or “controversial,” Black people like Abdilahi Elmi will still be facing deportation. Muslim Canadians will still be on the no-fly list. White nationalist editorials will still be commissioned by major newspapers under […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: African Nova Scotians, Africville, anti-Black racism, Boat Harbour, bus drivers refusing service, Chad Lindsay, charity, charity and social media, Count Me In, Emma Davie, Erin DiCarlo, food banks, Francis Campbell, Halifax Transit, International Decade for People of African Descent, Joseph Farrow, Julianne Harnish, Kate Gilmore, Lisa Cameron, Minister Tony Ince, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, piano lessons, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), political speed dating, Premier Stephen McNeil, Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), sexual assault, The Nook

How many adults looked the other way as children in their care were being sexually abused?

Morning File, Thursday, August 8, 2019

August 8, 2019 By Tim Bousquet 5 Comments

News 1. Patrick McNutt This item contains accounts of sexual abuse of children. A police release from yesterday: Investigators with the Special Investigation Section of the Integrated Criminal Investigative Division have laid additional charges against a man in relation to multiple historical sexual assaults that occurred in the 1970s and 80s. Investigators have charged Michael […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Adam Barrett, Ben Eoin, BlackBay Real Estate Group, Child sexual abuse, eviction, Frances Willick, Mary Campbell, Michael Patrick McNutt, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Northern Pulp Mill effluent, Project Apollo, Taryn Grant, toxic waste, Unifor, world class

Department of Environment slams Northern Pulp’s environmental assessment as “insufficient”

Paper Excellence Canada’s actions suggest maybe it never intended to operate Northern Pulp past 2020. 

April 24, 2019 By Jennifer Henderson 2 Comments

The Nova Scotia Department of Environment has listed nine pages worth of missing information from Northern Pulp’s Environmental Assessment of a new wastewater treatment system to replace the 50-year-old one at Boat Harbour next to the Pictou landing First Nation. The missing information is required to fulfil the “terms and conditions” of a focus report […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Department of Environment, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Landing First Nation

Environment Minister Margaret Miller isn’t talking about Northern Pulp’s much-criticized environmental assessment

Morning File, Friday, March 15, 2019

March 15, 2019 By Tim Bousquet and Jennifer Henderson 9 Comments

News 1. Spill at Moose River gold mine “Atlantic Gold’s manager of environment and permitting, James Millard, calls it a ‘spill’ or a ‘loss of control’ caused by a ‘gasket failure,’” reports Joan Baxter: By whatever name, the event happened on the night of January 3, 2019, at the company’s open pit gold mine at […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Adele Poirier, Biodiversity Act, Biodiversity Council, Boat Harbour, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Service, Chris Miller, David Pugliese, Dillon Consulting, Duncan Reid, Ecology Action Centre, Extinction Rebellion, George Farmer, Irving Shipbuilding, Joan Baxter, Justice Jamie Campbell, Kevin McCoy, Matthew Halliday, Minister Iain Rankin, Minister Margaret Miller, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Postmedia, Ray Plourde, Stephen Archibald and the CSTF drill shed, Tim wonders about a thing, violations of privacy laws

Northern Pulp’s environmental assessment “is simply not credible” says EAC

Morning File, Wednesday, March 13, 2019

March 13, 2019 By Tim Bousquet and Jennifer Henderson 2 Comments

News 1. Pulp Culture   We’ve published Linda Pannozzo’s detailed review of how through the decades the province has oriented forest policies — and purposefully subverted science — to favour the pulp industry over the lumber industry. As a result, overcutting has resulted in smaller trees that provide less lumber, and now the sawmills are […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Andrew Macdonald, Andrew Scheer, Bay Ferries, Boeing 737 MAX 8, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS-NS), Chris Miller, Daphnee Azoulay, David Woodbury, Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, Ecology Action Centre (EAC), Extinction Rebellion PEI, FOIPOP, Icarus Report March 13 2019, Justice Michael Wood, laura Meader, nail gun, Nancy Anningson, Nhlanhla Dlamini, Nicole LaFosse Parker, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Peter Kelly, Progressive Conservative Caucus, Raymond Plourde, Rebecca Lau, Scott Campbell, Simon Ryder-Burbridge, Yarmouth ferry

Dalhousie researcher breaks silence over pulp mill’s cancer-causing air emissions

March 7, 2019 By Linda Pannozzo 9 Comments

Dalhousie University researcher Emma Hoffman has come forward to defend her 2017 ambient air quality study about cancer-causing air emissions detected near the Northern Pulp mill after finding that her study was “misrepresented” in the mill’s recently registered Environmental Assessment [EA] for its proposed effluent treatment facility.  In Part 3 of the “Dirty Dealing” series, I […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Environmental Advisory Management Committee (BHEAC), Boat Harbour remediation project, Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), Carex Canada, Dr. Judith Guernsey, Emma Hoffman, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Granton NAPS site, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Tony Walker, volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

Northern Pulp’s environmental documents: missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions

March 5, 2019 By Joan Baxter 9 Comments

Cover photo: “Point D,” where treated Northern Pulp wastewater currently flows from Boat Harbour into the Northumberland Strait, just a few hundred metres from Pictou Landing First Nation. There is much to wade through in the documents Northern Pulp submitted to Nova Scotia Environment on February 7, 2019, when it registered its “Replacement Effluent Treatment […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Bell Bay Tasmania, Boat Harbour, Bruce Chapman, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), Canso Chemicals, Chief Andrea Paul, Clean the Mill Group, Dave Gunning, Dillon Consulting, dioxins and furans, Dr. John Krawczyk, Environment Minister Iain Rankin, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, Gary Porter, Greg Egilsson, Gulf NS Herring Federation, Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA), Jamie Simpson, Kathy Cloutier, KSH Consulting, mercury, Mi’kmaq Conservation Group, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp effluent, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Nova Scotia Environment, oxygen delignification system, Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Harbour, Pictou Landing, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Point D, Rachel Boomer, Terri Fraser, Toxikos

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Mo Kenney. Photo: Matt Williams

Episode #18 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne is published.

Mo Kenney’s new record Covers is a perfect winter companion — songs from across the rock spectrum that she’s pared down to piano or guitar and turned them into sad ballads. She joins Tara to talk about choosing and arranging them, and opens up for a frank discussion of the alcohol dependency it took a pandemic for her to confront. Plus: Movies are back (again).

This episode is available today only for premium subscribers; to become a premium subscriber, click here, and join the select group of arts and entertainment supporters for just $5/month. Everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow to listen to it.

Please subscribe to The Tideline.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

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Recent posts

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